Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands.
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Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
Implicit in the activist conception of government is the assumption that you can take the good things in a complex read more
Implicit in the activist conception of government is the assumption that you can take the good things in a complex system for granted, and just improve the things that are not so good. What is lacking in this conception is any sense that a society, an institution, or even a single human being, is an intricate system of fragile inter-relationships, whose complexities are little understood and easily destabilized.
A fool hath no dialogue within himself, the first thought carrieth him without the reply of a second.
A fool hath no dialogue within himself, the first thought carrieth him without the reply of a second.
It is generally recognized that creativity requires leisure, an absence of rush, time for the mind and imagination to float read more
It is generally recognized that creativity requires leisure, an absence of rush, time for the mind and imagination to float and wander and roam, time for the individual to descend into the depths of his or her psyche, to be available to barely audible signals rustling for attention. Long periods of time may pass in which nothing seems to be happening. But we know that kind of space must be created if the mind is to leap out of its accustomed ruts, to part from the mechanical, the known, the familiar, the standard, and generate a leap into the new.
The new frontiers to be conquered are mainly in the convolutions of the cortex.
The new frontiers to be conquered are mainly in the convolutions of the cortex.
Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era read more
Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era of events. The new barbarism of the twentieth century is the echo of words bandied about by brilliant speakers and writers in the second half of the nineteenth.
There are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant read more
There are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
Conscious and unconscious experiences do not belong to different compartments of the mind; they form a continuous scale of gradations, read more
Conscious and unconscious experiences do not belong to different compartments of the mind; they form a continuous scale of gradations, of degrees of awareness.
